


The Newest Tea Dragon

by DWEmma



Category: Nimona (Webcomic), The Tea Dragon Society
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-30 12:15:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15751479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DWEmma/pseuds/DWEmma
Summary: The Institution is gone, Nimona is bored, and decides to try being a tea dragon for a while. It goes poorly.





	The Newest Tea Dragon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spoke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spoke/gifts).



SPRING

It had been a long time since the Institution fell, since adventurers needed swords to protect them from monsters, since good was pitted against evil just so that those in power could keep themselves in power. 

But Erik had not forgotten. His chair was his trusty metal companion these days, as were the scissors he used to cut the tea off his dragon. But he kept his sword deep in a closet, mostly just to remember. Hese pretended that he didn’t know, and pretended that mostly meant completely. The little protection spell he put on it to keep it in its place helped his peace of mind considerably. Their life was slower paced now. Their love was more about intimacy, and less about adrenaline. And that was fine by them. 

But that was all before the day the Turkish Tea Dragon showed up. One that they’d never seen before. 

In fact, it was an even brighter pink than the typical Turkish variety. It clearly was without owner, but it didn’t have that sad aspect that tea dragons who have lost their owners or been abandoned by them usually possess. 

It also wasn’t peaceful. It was constantly trying to get the other tea dragons to wrestle, like it wasn’t a tea dragon at all. But it was growing Turkish Tea off it’s horns, as it was supposed to. 

Hesekiel decided that the only way to determine the origin and story of this dragon would be to drink its tea. The nightmares he witnessed due to this choice were indescribable. A multi-headed beast having its heads chopped off. A girl being shot in the leg with an arrow. Countless citizens growing ill from a strange disease. 

No wonder this tea dragon wasn’t sad to leave its former caretaker. What a horrifying life. 

They were trying to find her a new owner when it all happened. 

\- - - 

“Ambrosius!” Ballister called out from the bedroom of his former lair. “Darling, can you look through the shopping to see if we bought more wipes? Little Cedany seems to have blown out her diaper.” 

It had been 10 years since Ambrosius and Ballistar took down the Institution, letting go of the pretense of good versus evil and working toward a common goal. They were both council members now, elected officials who shared part of the responsibility for running the city. And they were married. Small ceremony. Only close friends and family. Minus Nimona. They hadn’t seen her since the catastrophe. 

“Ambrosius? Sir Goldenloin? Wipes please?” The stench was starting to get to him. Parenthood was really the thing he had never prepared for, but the twins, Cedany and Forthwind, really did a bring a lightness to his heart, that was, when they weren’t covered in excrement. 

Ambrosius entered the room with a packet of wipes, kissed Ballistair on the forehead, and left him to the mess. That really hadn’t changed about him. Always leaving when messes were involved. 

Ballistair cleaned his daughter’s behind, and she gurgled at him. He gurgled back. “Who is a good baby girl. Yes you are. Yes, it’s you. Yes you are.” 

From the pile of stuffed animals in the corner came a loud whine. “UGHHHHH! Your life is so boring.” 

Ballistair looked more closely at the pile to see a bright pink teddy bear talking to him. “Nimona?” 

“Hey boss!” The teddy morphed into a girl, who wrapped both arms around him in a hug. 

“Nimona, it’s been 10 years! What are you doing here?” 

“Uh, rescuing you from the most boring life ever, clearly. What he heck is that thing? It smells terrible.” 

“The diaper? Yes, it’s dirty. Excrement tends to smell.” 

“No,” said Nimona, waving her arms in the general direction of Cedany. “That.” 

“That’s a baby. My baby. She goes by Cedany.” 

“I don’t care what she goes by. I don’t like her.” 

There was an awkward pause where Ballistair stared at Nimona with an eyebrow raised, willing her to see how rude she’d just been, and Nimona stared back at him. 

“You blinked! I win!” Nimona uproariously laughed. “Okay, enough games. I’m here to rescue you.” 

“Nimona, I don’t need rescuing. I’m home with my husband and babies.”  
“There are more of them?” Nimona looked around as if she might be attacked from either direction. 

“Ambrosius has our boy, Forthwind, in another room,” he said, sighing a deep sigh. He had spent 10 years missing her, and after two minutes he was already wondering what, precisely, he had missed about her. 

“Ambrosius? Sir Goldenloin? He has your baby? I knew you needed rescuing. I’ll kill him!” Nimona attempted to charge out of the room, but Ballistair manages to slammed the door before she could get through it. 

“Calm yourself, Nimona. Sir Ambrosius Goldenloin, my husband. Has OUR child. As in his and mine. A lot has changed since you left, Nimona,” he said, all whilst trying to calm Cedany, who had begun to cry at the sound of the door slamming. 

“Why is she making that horrible noise?” Nimona dramatically covered her ears. “Can you cover her mouth so it stops?” 

“No, Nimona, that might kill her.” Nimona looked at him unblinkingly, not seeming to understand why that would be a problem. “Let’s change the subject. Where have you been this whole time?”

“Well I was staying with these boring dragons that grow smelly leaves from their heads for a while, but then something happened and now I’m here.” 

“Tea Dragons? Were you staying with a man named Erik?” 

“Old dude in a wheelchair? Then maybe?” Nimona looked down at the floor, her eyes getting shifty. 

“Oh, he was part of our training group years ago. Went off to adventure by himself. I heard he met a nice hybrid-human and opened a Tea Room in the more rural areas outside of the city after his unfortunate accident.” 

“Wait, how did you know about his unfortunate accident. It like, just happened a few minutes ago,” Nimona said, looking genuinely confused. 

“Nimona, what have you done?” Ballistar got down to her level in looked her in the eyes. 

“Nothing on purpose. But probably a really bad thing? I don’t know, that’s why I came here. So you could fix it for me. And it sounds like you know where the Tea House is, so I’ll just be on my way.” 

“Nimona, no, you’re coming with me. We have to go save the Tea Dragon Society!”

“Uhhhhh saving people is boring.”

“Or we could stay her and take care of my delightful twin babies.”

“Saving the touchy feelie good guys it is, boss!”

\- - - - - - - 

STILL SPRING

The fire hadn’t been that big at first. 

Greta had been warming the tea over the wood stove, so when Minette smelled smoke, she just figured that there was tea on the way. But then the smell got stronger. And stronger. And suddenly she realized that the whole shop was on fire. 

She ran into the shop, telling her dragon to stay put. Who was in there? She thought through where she had last seen Hese and Erik, but she didn’t know. Were they upstairs? And where were the rest of the dragons? Where was the new dragon? That one didn’t have a human, so it was even more vulnerable. 

Just then a giant dragon that looked oddly familiar swooped over the shop and landed next to her. A man who looked ready to do battle with the fire jumped off the dragon, and suddenly the dragon became a girl. 

If there hadn’t been a fire and Minette hadn’t been at her very most brave, she would have startled and run off. But she’d seen visions of something like this happening in the future, so she was as prepared as she could have been. 

“Brave Lady, are there any humans or other intelligent creatures in the burning house?” asked the man who looked like a Knight. 

“Yeah, where are Hese and Erik and Greta and all the dragons?” asked the girl-who-had-been-a-dragon. 

Minette screwed up all her talking courage and...shrugged. She honestly didn’t know. 

The knight ran into the house, yelling, “Nimona, have the girl find a you a water source and transform into something useful!” 

“Boss, you’re literally running into a burning house!” The dragon/girl/Nimona said. 

“So make it be less on fire!” said the knight-boss, as Minette watched, trembling. This was not how she wanted her day to go. 

“Where do you keep the water?” Nimona asked, and Minette signaled that she should follow, and took her to the well. She started to lift the bucket, but found herself knocked to the ground by a the trunk of a 16 foot tall pink elephant. The trunk was three times the height of the elephant. She watched it go down into the well and suck the well practically dry. The Elephant-Nimona then stomped back to the house and sprayed down everything. She watched the Elephant repeat the process a number of times until most of the flames were out. 

Out of the house came the knight, carrying Erik in his arms. Erik had 3 tea dragons on his lap. Next out came Hese, carrying Greta. Minette clapped her hands, and ran over to her Society. They all got hugs. 

As Hese worked some magic to heal all their lungs from any smoke damage, Minette looked around for the new dragon. The one without a human companion. It was nowhere to be seen. 

“We’re missing one!” she gasped. “The Turkish Tea Dragon is missing.” 

And before her very eyes, she watched the elephant transform into the dragon. She blinked. The Girl-Dragon-Elephant was also the cute little tea dragon who had been living in the house? Or was the girl mocking her?

“Sorry,” said the dragon, which was quite alarming since dragons don’t normally talk. 

“Nimona, tell them what you’re sorry for,” said the knight. 

“Uh, I’m sorry I burned your house down,” 

“Wait, you started the fire? I thought you put out the fire. What’s going on?” asked Greta. 

“Uh, I thought it would be fun to be a tea dragon for a while. And it was. I grew tea, I played with the other dragons, you people fed me...but then I got bored. And I found a sword in the back of a closet, and I thought it was cool. But when I tried to take it out to play with it, there was some sort of spell on it. So I uh, tried to break the spell by blowing fire one it.” 

“But Tea Dragons don’t blow fire,” said a confused Hesekial. 

“If I may?” said the knight. “First off, Lord Ballistair Blackheart, at your service. I was educated with your husband at the Institution, before it went evil.”

“I thought that was you, Ballistair. What a strange coincidence,” said Erik. 

“What Nimona is trying to say is that she never was a tea dragon. And she never should have tried to break a spell with fire. And that she’s sorry she burned down your house, and she’s going to rebuilt it for you, piece by piece, until it’s done.” 

“Awwww! I put the fire out. Isn’t that enough?” whined Nimona. 

Just then a part of the roofing caved on on the house. 

“Uhhh, I should have just stayed a tea dragon. Being a tea dragon was fun,” grumbled Nimona, as the Society watched their house crumble. 

“Meanwhile, my husband and I would love to invite the four of you to come stay with us in the city while Nimona fixes her mistakes. It’s the least we can do. I do have to warn you, our babies do cry,” said Ballistair, only to be cut off by an excited Minette.

“Babies? Oh I love babies. So does my dragon. I’ll come stay with you even if everyone else doesn’t,” said Minette. 

“It seems that we have no choice,” said Hese, sadly looking at the home he and Erik built. “Though I’m not sure I completely trust Nimona in rebuilding anything.” 

Ballistair leaned in to the men, where he hoped Nimona couldn’t hear. “I’ll hire professionals to help her. I’m so very sorry about all of this. I don’t even want to imagine what would have happened if Nimona hadn’t thought to fly directly to me. She knew she made a mistake. This shows real character growth for her.” 

“I’m a growing girl!” Nimona said, as she morphed her body to be twice its normal size. 

Greta looked at the house with regret. “I’m going to go back home while the rebuild is happening. My mother still needs to teach me so much. This will be a good chance for that. Though the irony of making swords after this is not lost on me.” 

“You make swords? How about we trade. You build a house, and I’ll go make swords in FIRE.” 

“Nimona, no,” said Ballistair. “Make yourself useful and become some sort of trasnport for all these folks whose lives you ruined. 

“Ugh, fine...” Nimona transformed into an even bigger dragon. “Get on. I’ll take you back to the stupid babies.” 

And she did. 

SUMMER

The tea shop was rebuilt to be three stories tall, completely wheelchair accessible, with special passages through the walls so that the dragons could move from room to room even if the doors were closed. Spells were cast on everything to make them flame retardant. 

And in their time in the city, Ballistair had given them a spotlight, and tea dragon tea became one of the most expensive and sought after items in the marketplace.


End file.
